Monday, January 16, 2012

Billy Beane’s Oakland A’s continued their extreme offseason makeover Monday with yet another trade. This time Beane shipped pitchers Josh Outman and Guillermo Moscoso to the Rockies for outfielder Seth Smith—who has been involved in trade rumors throughout the offseason.

Smith, 29, has served mostly as a fourth outfielder type for the Rockies since 2008, but he got a career high 533 plate appearances last season. He hit .284/.347/.483 with 15 homers, 32 doubles and 10 stolen bases. He hasn’t played center field since 2008, so he’s best used as a corner outfielder. He’ll likely be the starter in left field with Coco Crisp in center and Josh Reddick in right. Of course, prospect Michael Taylor is going to figure in the mix at some point.

One item of note: Smith’s career splits indicate he was hugely helped by Coors Field. He’s hit .296/.366/.559 at home and .257/.332/.418 on the road. And Oakland plays in one of the worst hitters’ parks in the majors.

Moscoso, 28, was 8-10 with a 3.38 ERA, 1.09 WHIP and 74 strikeouts in 128 innings last season. Outman, 27, was 3-5 with a 3.70 ERA, 1.46 WHIP and 35 strikeouts in 58 1/3 innings. And, again, we’ll note that these two pitchers are going from having a very pitcher-friendly home park to one of the most hitter-friendly yards in the bigs.

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Seriously, WTF, how is "My Week with Marilyn" and "Enlightened" considered a comedy? Tina Fey and Amy Poehler have been getting screwed in that category for years (let alone the glaring omission in nominations for Aubrey Plaza, Alison Brie and Kaitlin Olsen).

Moscoso's an extreme FB pitcher who doesn't strike guys out, so he seems like a poor fit for Coors. He did show some very good command last year, though. Outman looked pretty good in 2009 before busting his elbow. He took awhile to come back, and his control was shakier than usual to start the year, but he started to look better toward the end of the season.

I guess Smith will platoon with Cowgill in LF, with Crisp in CF and Reddick in RF. This seems to seal Taylor heading back to Sacto and giving up on Allen in LF. The rotation is in shambles, which unfortunately means they're likely to start Peacock and/or Parker in Oakland. As it is now: 1) McCarthy, 2) Colon, 3) Ross, 4, Milone, 5) Godfrey.

That rotation in #5 looks frightening. I don't follow the Athletics all that well, but I don't even know who those guys are. McCarthy, is that Brandon McCarthy, the guy the White Sox traded to the Rangers for John Danks? Colon? Did they sign Bartolo, if he's still around? Or is that Roman? No idea who Ross, Milone, and Godfrey are. So are the Athletics going to lose 110 games this year or what?

EDIT: After perusing their B-R page, that's definitely Brandon, and Tyson Ross and Graham Godfrey are interesting if uninspiring young-ish pitchers. I'm still not too optimistic about their chances...

Beane has gone stark raving mad. Not that this trade makes or breaks either team but WTF is he doing? Is he trying to get fired? The only reason this makes sense for the As is if they can flip Smith at mid-season for some prospect, but really, who are they going to get other than the upside of Outman or Moscoso?

The following are all the pitchers who have started 20 or more games for the A's in the last five seasons.

B.Anderson - Still there!
J.Blanton - traded after 3.5 years with OaklandD.Braden - Still there!
T.Cahill - traded after 4 years with Oakland
L.DiNardo - spent 2 years there, then free agency
J.Duchscherer - reached free agency after 6 years with Oakland. And re-signed, and reached free agency again!
D.Eveland - traded after 2 years with Oakland
C.Gaudin - traded after 2.5 years with Oakland
G.Gonzalez - traded after 4 years with Oakland
R.Harden - traded after 5.5 years with Oakland
D.Haren - traded after 3 years with Oakland
J.Kennedy - waived after 2 years with Oakland
V.Mazzaro - traded after 2 years with Oakland (this was the DeJesus trade, last year's equivalent of the Seth Smith trade)B.McCarthy - still there!
G.Moscoso - traded after 1 year with Oakland
J.Outman - traded after 4 years with Oakland
B.Sheets - free agent after 1-year deal expired
G.Smith - traded after 1 year with Oakland

Seven of these guys both arrived in Oakland and left Oakland via trade. McCarthy and Anderson were both acquired in trades, so presumably in a year or so it will be 9 out of 18.

That rotation in #5 looks frightening. I don't follow the Athletics all that well, but I don't even know who those guys are. McCarthy, is that Brandon McCarthy, the guy the White Sox traded to the Rangers for John Danks? Colon? Did they sign Bartolo, if he's still around? Or is that Roman? No idea who Ross, Milone, and Godfrey are. So are the Athletics going to lose 110 games this year or what?

Yep. McCarthy was great last year (led the AL in FIP, but his shoulder is more a question of 'when' than 'if.' Speaking of FIP, Milone led the IL, Peacock led the EL, and Godfrey was tied for 2nd in the PCL (if you drop the IP limits for the latter two). That's, um, something something.

And neither of those guys are arb-eligible, either. It's not like they were about to get slightly more expensive, or that they could afford to give up the pitching depth in exchange for a (admittedly very good) platoon hitter. How weird.

One issue with the A's is they keep putting guys back in AAA after extended period in the majors. Chris Carter, Michael Taylor, Brandon Allen and Drederic Barton might be 2012 A's, or they might be in the minors.

Kevin Kouzmanoff was traded, I don't know who their 3B is. Mark Ellis and Conor Jackson aren't there anymore. The bullpen has ... Grant Balfour? Ziegler and Bailey aren't there anymore ... Craig Breslow is still there I think.

Jemile Weeks! He's good!

I didn't know that McCarthy or Colon were on the team until this thread. Honestly, I had assumed that Dallas Braden was gone too. He's probably next, right?

Braden is still rehabbing his shoulder injury, so they can't trade him until June or July. Much like Anderson.

Smith's arb-eligible through 2014, or at least per Baseball America, per Cot's. I like Smith, and I'm fine with the trade as long as it doesn't mean Peacock or Parker starts the year in the rotation. That would probably be pointless. Smith hasn't ever really been given a chance until last year, when he did fine. I'd give him a better chance to show value over the next few years than Allen/Taylor/Carter/Cowgill/other assorted bums. Moscoso is going to get hit by regression hard, and Outman is probably a LOOGY post-surgery. 6 months ago no one would have batted an eye at this trade, so I'm not feeling too worked up about it now just because Moscoso got BABIP lucky for a few months.

So are the Athletics going to lose 110 games this year or what?

It would be great if they lost 110 games in the long run, but I think the schadenfreude police are going to be disappointed/surprised. This group still wins 70. They're not actually that bad. They need to get worse!

One item of note: Smith’s career splits indicate he was hugely helped by Coors Field. He’s hit .296/.366/.559 at home and .257/.332/.418 on the road.

Can we retire this tired and incorrect meme? Smith's splits indicate he played in Coors Fiekd, not that he was helped by it. Its mathematically impossible to have extreme hitters parks without the home team having extreme splits.

Can we retire this tired and incorrect meme? Smith's splits indicate he played in Coors Fiekd, not that he was helped by it. Its mathematically impossible to have extreme hitters parks without the home team having extreme splits.

Agreed. Matt Holliday's home/road splits as a Rockie were extreme but his park adjusted offensive numbers as a Cardinal and A are pretty consistent with the park adjusted numbers he put up as a Rockie. Obviously Coors boosts raw offensive numbers and Smith will see his raw offensive numbers take a big hit as he goes from Coors to Oakland but that doesn't mean his raw road numbers mean anything. Take his park adjusted numbers are move on.

It's so, so, so freakin' dumb to say "X hit .240 on the road," with the implication that this means .240 is X's true talent level.

This seems like a bad trade for both teams. Rockies get 2 fly ball pitchers who don't strike people out. A's have to put their young pitchers in the rotation a year early and bench Cowgill for whom they just traded Cahill. I'm not understanding this at all from either side...unless the A's flip Smith for Jurrjens or something.

Is this in part to open a spot on the 40-man for Colon?

I still don't see what Sean Doolittle is doing on the 40-man. Or Pedro Figueroa for that matter. The whole thing is very weird.

This seems like a bad trade for both teams. Rockies get 2 fly ball pitchers who don't strike people out. A's have to put their young pitchers in the rotation a year early and bench Cowgill for whom they just traded Cahill. I'm not understanding this at all from either side...unless the A's flip Smith for Jurrjens or something.

First, I don't think this necessarily means they're starting Peacock, Parker, or Gray in Oakland. They seem likely to acquire another stopgap SP. And if they don't, are Outman and Moscoso better than Ross and Godfrey? Are they much better than NRIs like Edgar Gonzalez and Fabio Castro?

Second, I don't think the presence of Outman and (particularly) Moscoso was going to determine whether or not the young guys start in Oakland or Sacramento. If they think they're ready and don't care about service time, I doubt they'd hold them back for these two.

I don't know whether they'll be able to get anything useful for Smith if they decide to trade him, but I think he has more value than Outman/Moscoso. In the meantime, Smith is the A's best hitter and makes them slightly more watchable, Cowgill should still get plenty of playing time as 4th OF/platoon mate/Coco-replacement, and Taylor gets to play full time in AAA instead of rotting on the bench in Oakland. It's mostly inconsequential, but I don't see any reason to dislike the move. They slightly improved the team without sacrificing anything of real value. But I completely agree that Doolittle would pass through waivers with ease.

I thought we learned this lesson way back when Alfonso Soriano was in Texas and a .200 hitter on the road (or something.) Then he went to Washington and mashed. Make the park adjustment, and leave it. Cutting the sample size in two is pointless.

It certainly is possible that a player could be helped by his home park by more than the park factor. A flyball hitter in Coors or a pull righty in Fenway may well be a worse hitter than his part neutral stats suggest. A flyball hitter could be killed by the Oakland Coliseum. And so on. Park factors are obviously not one-size-fits-all.

This fact does not authorize people to use stats wrong. I expect that a split like Smith's (900/750) could pretty easily occur randomly. These are small samples, there are a wide range of possible numbers that wouldn't be good evidence of real deviation from the expected park effect.

If you want to make a case for a divergent park effect on a particular player, you need to show that his numbers diverge to a degree greater than can be explained by random variation, or you need to make an observational / scouty case that his skills better or worse fit a particular park.